[laughter] i just wanted to remind everyone we do have books on sale around the corner. support local businesswomen and children first, and we will have book signing and photo -- [laughter] [applause] thank you. we will have book signing and photos at this table here. thanks so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> this sunday booktv will be live from the museum of the bible in washington, d.c. to look at the bible's influence on literature and its impact on issues ranging from government and legal systems to education, human rights and more. we'll take your call, questions and comments. that's live at 1 p.m. eastern

time this sunday on booktv. [inaudible conversations] >> hello, everyone. we're going to go ahead and get started. before we do, if you could please silence your cell phones, we would greatly appreciate that. thank you. my name's kelly, or i'm an event host here. thank you so much for joining us this saturday afternoon. we have our special guest, christopher finan who is the executive director for the national coalition against censorship. he is the author of "from the palmer raids to the patriot act: a history of the fight for free speech in america." he's also the author of alfred

e. smith, the happy warrior. and today he's here to discuss his new book, drunks in american history. please join me in welcoming chris finan. [applause] >> thank you. it's a real pleasure to be here in california. i just happened to be visiting, and i didn't really know what to -- how to dress when i was coming out of here from new york. so i'm wearing tweed -- [laughter] so i'm going to take it off. but i just wanted you to see that i do, in fact, have a jacket. [laughter] i love history, and i have for a long time, and i studied history in school, in graduate school. and what had always appealed to me as a historian was strong stories. and so my first book was a biography of alfred e. smith, the first catholic to run for president, a poor boy who became the great reforming governor of new york and then would have been a great president, but he

got wiped out by herbert hoover. and and i love that story, and i spent 20 years writing it. and i decided when it was done i better hurry up on the next book, or i would be dead before i got another one done. [laughter] the next one was about free speech which we kind of all assume we've always had free speech in this country. we have a first amendment, and it isn't true, you know? for the first hundred years there was a lot of censorship in america, and what we have today, the freedom we have today we, a lot of remarkable people fought for to achieve. this story, though, is very personal in the sense that it's still a history. it's not a history of me or my family, but i am the most recent of a long line of alcoholics going back at least to my great grandfather. and i got sober 30 years ago. so i've always been interested

in the story of recovery. i read books, you know, the histories of alcoholics anonymous, but i decided i really wanted to go all the way back to the beginning of american history and see what i could find out. and what i found out is that it is a fascinating story, and it starts very early in our history. but it's not just, it's not just a story that affects my family, you know? in fact, there are millions of people who are alive today. the estimates are between 25 and 40 million people are in recovery in the united states. and so i wanted to tell a story that was meaningful for them as well as, you know, me and my degeneral p cants. descendants. recovery in america really begins with the indians.

the first recovery movements are efforts by native americans to deal with the terrible consequences of the alcohol that they were given by white settlers and trappers. and they recognized early on that this was destroying them as surely as their displacement and and other negative consequences of white settlement. but there's one indian in particular who particularly stands out, and that's a man named handsome lake. handsome lake was a seneca indian who, in 1799, had his last great binge. and i wanted to read to you a little about that binge because it sets up the rest of his story. in the spring of 1799, handsome lake -- a native american --

joined members of his hunting party in making the long journey from pittsburgh to their home near the border of new york. handsome lake was a member of the seneca nation, one of six nations in the iroquois confederacy. he had been renown for his fighting skill, but the iroquois had been stripped of almost all of their lands after the american revolution. now 50 years old, handsome lake too was a shadow of what he had been. he would later say that heavy drinking had reduced him to but yellow skin and drieded bones. after stopping in pittsburgh to trade furs for several barrels of whiskey, the hunters lashed their canoes together and began to paddle up the allegheny river. only those in the outer canoes had to work. the rest of the party drank whiskey, yelling and singing like demented people. the good times didn't stop after they picked up their wives and children who had accompanied

them on the hunting trip and were waiting at a rendezvous. everyone looked forward to being home in corn planters' town named for its seneca leader. the joy of their homecoming did not last long. there was enough whiskey to keep the men drunk for several weeks. handsome lake described the horror of that time. now that the party is home, the men revel in strong drink and are very quarrelsome. because of this, the families become frightened and move away for safety. so for many places in the bushlands, campfires send up their smoke. now the drunking men run yelling through the village, and there is no one there except the trunken men. now they are beast-like and run about clothing, and all have weapons to injure those whom they meet. now there are no doors in the houses, for they have all been kicked in. so also there are no fires in the village and have not been for many days. now the dogs yelp and cry in all

the houses, for they are hungry. for several weeks handsome lake lay in a bed in the home of his daughter and son-in-law recovering from his drinking binge and consumed by thoughts of death. handsome lake said now, as he lies in sickness, he meditates and longs that he might walk upon the earth. and then he thinks how evil and loathsome he is before the great ruler. he news how he -- he thinks how he has done evil ever since he had been able to work. now it comes to his mind that perchance evil has arisen because of strong drink, and he resolves to use it never more. now he continually thinks of this every day and every hour. he continually thinks of this. then a time comes and he craves try again, for he thinks he cannot recover his strength about it. now two ways he thinks.

what once he did and whether he will ever recover. it was in this severely depressed state that handsome lake experienced a spiritual vision. as he looked outside the door of his hut, he saw three handsomely dressed native american men who were messagers from the great creator. messengers from the great creator. and the message they delivered was that the indians must stop drinking, that drinking was killing native americans and that handsome lake had been chosen to lead a religious revival built on sobriety. he recovered, he began a long journey, 15-year journey from village the village in western pennsylvania among the seneca villages and other iroquois, the other iroquois tribes, and gradually he, his message was received, and he significantly succeeded -- succeeded in

significantly reducing the amount of drinking that there was in the nation. so significantly that even the whites, who had been very disdainful of the indians, recognized it, and it was perpetuated after his death. but he knew by the time he died in 1815 that he had accomplished his mission. so handsome lake was a pioneer of recovery. about the same time, a white recovery movement had also gotten underway. it didn't have an outstanding leader like him, but it was much bigger. it was a national movement, and it revolved around persuading people to sign a pledge that they would not drink alcohol. and by the time, by the 1830s millions of people in america had signed this and significantly reduced the incidence of alcoholism in the

population. but this recovery movement had very little to do with alcoholics. the assumption was at that time that alcoholics were pretty much lost people, that alcoholism was incurable and that the best you could hope for was that the alcoholics would die off and that a new generation of sober people would not create any more alcoholics. there were some alcoholics who disagreed with that approach, and a group of them in baltimore founded a group called the washingtonian society which was dedicated to reaching out specifically to men who had a problem with drinking. men and women. but, obviously, many more men. and this movement would become the first national movement to help alcoholics.

delegates from boston began to spread out around the country, and a major meeting was held -- one of the most important early meetings -- was held in new york. in 1841. the methodist church on green street in new york city was packed on the wintry evening of march 23rd, 1841. new yorkers had been hearing reports from baltimore that a group of drunks had gotten themselves sober and had launched a movement to save the lives of alcoholics. the reformed drunks were members of the washington temperance society and called themselves washingtonians to identify themselves against the struggle of alcohol with the nation's war from british despotism. there was some trepidation about inviting even sober drunks to address one of their meetings.

they feared that the tales of debauchery would offend the middle class audience. but the full pews of the church revealed the enormous curiosity to hear their stories. john h.w. i hawkins, an unemployed hatter who had been sober less than a year, was the first to speak. hawkins would become the washingtonians' greatest orr or to have, but he had made his first speech only a few weeks earlier. at the age of 43, he was not a young man, and his nose was too large for a handsome one. he had large, expressive eyes and dark, bushy eyebrows. as he spoke in the church, his audience was struck by the simplicity and sincerity about which he told about his terrible degradation and nearly miraculous recovery. they were moved by his passion and commitment to saving the lives of alcoholics by getting them to sign a pledge not to drink alcoholic beverages. if there's a man on earth who deserves the sympathy of the

world, it is the poor drunkard, hawkins said. he is poisoned, degraded, cast out, knows not what to do and must be helped, or he is lost. i feel for drunkards. i want them to come and sign the pledge and be saved. suddenly, hawkins was interrupted by a voice from the gallery. can i be saved, a man asked, i am a poor drunkard. i would give the world if i was as you. yes, there is, my friend, hawkins replied. come down and sign the pledge, and you will be a man. come down, and i will meet you, and we will take you by the hand. a minister who was present later described the scene for william george hawkins, john's son and biographer. there was silence as the manmade his way to the stairs and began to descend. your father sprang from the stand, and followed by others, met the poor man literally halfway, escorted him to the desk and guided his hand as he signed his name. then such a shout broke out from the friends of temperance as

must have reached the angels above. fiver or six others of this miserable class and some 30 or 40 others well known as hard drinkers and drunkards, the reverend john marsh reported. news of the green street meeting soon spread through the city. the washingtonians addressed immense meetings every night for the next two weeks. 3,000 people heard them at a meeting at city hall park, more than 2,500 signed the washingtonian pledge. the victory was now gained, marsh said. the work of redemption among the poor drunkards had commenced. men like hawkins took to the road and visited practically every community in the united states and spread the message of redemption for alcoholics. they convinced people to come to meetings where they heard other drunks like themselves talk

about how they had been drunks, how they got sober and what their lives were like after they got sober. and these men in turn went out and got more men, and many of these were the most degraded people in the city. they were people in the streets, they were people sleeping in stables, and they were brought back to respectability by -- with the help of these washingtonians. the washingtonians made a remarkable impression on americans. they couldn't believe that these men, almost lazarus-like, were being lifted from their diseased state and returned to normalcy, and it became a huge fad. thousands joined the washingtonians who weren't alcoholics at all, but wanted to support or the work of the organization. and it seemed like the country was on the verge of a major breakthrough in how to treat

alcoholics. the problem was it couldn't sustain its enthusiasm. the thousands who were members of the association who weren't alcoholics after a while got tired of listening to the alcoholics talk about their stories. and they left the organization. and the men who were left behind didn't have sufficient organization to be able to sustain their movement. but they had made a tremendous impression on one group of people in particular, and that was doctors. doctors who up to that point had never thought to help alcoholics because they didn't think they could be helped now began to see that alcoholics could be saved and began to create institutions, inebriate homes, they were called, or inebriate asylums where these men sometimes came and -- while still working in the city but came home to these asylums to be

around other alcoholics and to maintain their sobriety by living together. by the end of the 19th century, in fact, there was a tremendous, there had been a tremendous development of assistance for alcoholics. but that didn't last either. because something else had really grabbed the attention of the american people, and they -- and it seemed to provide a perfect answer to alcoholism, and that was prohibition. it seemed that if we could just ban alcohol, we could solve the problem of alcoholics because they couldn't get drunk anymore. it was so simple. and it was so cheap. so at that point there were some state institutions were being established. we could save some money, we could close those institutions, and the problem would disappear. of course, that's not what happened. although in the early years of prohibition there was a decline

in alcoholism and a decline in deaths from alcohol. alcohol found its way backing into american life. the alcoholics found the alcohol, and the problem just worsened, you know, year by year until by the time alcoholics anonymous is founded in 1935, it was a truly hopeless, hopeless prospect for alcoholics. today we've, those of us who are sober have been the been fishery of -- have been the beneficiary of a new wave of reform that really began with aa but is now, you know, well established in medical institutions and private institutions. and we've made tremendous progress. for a long time, into the late years of the 20th century, there

was still an argument about whether alcoholism was a disease or not or whether it was really people just didn't have strong enough willpower to be able to resist. we don't have that debate anymore today. it is widely accepted -- nobody is particularly bothered about the use of the word disease anymore. call it a disease, call it an illness, call it a disposition, we do understand that alcoholics need help, and they are getting it. we know today something that was not, had been forgotten from the 19th century which is that alcoholism can be treated, that people can live long and happy lives who are alcoholic, and that also is a lesson that was hard won. and finally today there is a

global community of people who are in recovery, as i said earlier millions and millions of people in recovery, who are ready to help others to achieve sobriety and to help themselves stay sober. so this is a story, this is a happy story, a story with a happy ending. there's still tremendous suffering from alcoholism. it's estimated that around 90,000 people a year die from alcoholism, another 60,000 tie there drug overdoses. there's still terrible suffering particularly in light of the opioid epidemic. but so many have been saved and so much progress has been made. and i just wanted to finish by reading you the epilogue which is about my family. my father told me the same story

many times when i was growing up. my grandfather mike sat him down at the kitchen table of their modest home in a hard-drinking steel town in western pennsylvania. i don't know how old my dad was at the time, maybe a navy recruit on leave during the last days of world war ii or the theater student attending college on the g.i. bill. he may even have been a disk jockey by then. mike was not much of a talker, but he was determined to make an impression on his son. his father was an alcoholic, died young leaving mike to raise two brothers and a sister. all three were heavy drinkers. so was mike. he put a bottle of kesslers whiskey on the table, and he poured two large drinks. raising his glass, he looked my dad in the eye, you drink too much, he said. mike was right about my dad, and if he had lived long enough, he would have seen right through me. when he died, my father and i got drunk on shots and beers in a dark neighborhood bar around

the corner from the funeral home. so my grandfather never knew that he had started something. my father continued to drink, often having his first martini of the day at 10 a.m. following his radio show, but he was haunted by what alcoholism had done to his family. and the storieses he told me were warnings. i was completely -- i wasn't completely surprised when he finally quit drinking. that decision changed his life. he was not a bad man, but he had been a selfish one. then he joined alcoholics anonymous and started to repair the damage that he had done to his wife and children. he tried to help others. he was like scrooge on christmas morning. in his own words, he took his head out of his ass. i watched his progress without understanding it because i was struggling with my own alcoholism. then i quit drinking too. and it all began with a story.

mike introduced my father to the family ghosts, and he passed them along to me. later i told our story so often that mien sons begged for mercy -- my sons begged for mercy. but stories can inspire as well as warn. from the time of handsome lake and the washingtonians, sober drunks have shared their stories with people like my dad and me. they have shown us that we are not alone and introduced us to a worldwide community of people who are living happily without drugs or alcohol. they have told us how their lives were saved. today we number in the millions, and our story grows louder with every retelling. thank you. [applause] i'd be happy to answer any questions or hear any comments. sure. >> thank you so much.

from my reading of history, it seems that the tolerance of alcohol-induced behavior has reduced dramatically over the last 150 years. for example, there are civil war generals who were widely rumored to have been drunk during battles, and whether true or not, today that would be investigated deeply. and back then it was sort of shrugged off. and other, you know, situations, i don't know, from the '50s. would you say that that's -- the tolerance for alcohol behavior is reduced in correlation to the success of treatment or some other factor? >> well, i -- yes, i think you're right. i think that a certain amount of drunkenness was part of the american way for a long time. i mean, in the early 18th century americans were drinking about five times what we drink today.

and there was a lot of alcoholism, and it was just considered, you know, something that had to be lived with. but as i think we taliban -- we began to understand the damage that was done by alcoholism, there has been less tolerance for it, and the prohibition movement could be quite intolerant toward alcoholics. they wanted, you know, they really believed alcoholics were a stain on, you know, the virtue of the country and that the country would be at lot better off without all the speakeasies and dive bars. and i think that's a good thing. i think it's good that we have an awareness today that people can do something about their problem. and there's an expectation that they will do something about it. so i think that's definitely progress.

>> what do you think the science of researching genetic -- [inaudible] behaviors that might have had moral judgment -- [inaudible] so if we have data now that -- [inaudible] with. >> i think that's a big, i think that's helped -- the knowledge be about genetics and the genetic link to alcoholism pretty much establishes that, you know, the biological basis for the illness has helped to destigmatize it, you know? i think there's no question, for example, that my family's got it, you know? and there are lots of families, you know, like me. i know a lot of second

generation sober people whose, you know, whose fathers were alcoholics, and, you know, who are in recovery themselves. it is a family disease. it's not the only cause of alcoholism. you can drink yourself into alcoholism too. but, but even then there is a biology of addiction that works the same in both, you know, in both cases. there is, there's a strong biological basis, there's a strong social basis too. it's a very, you know, it's a mixture of causes contribute to the problem. >> i want to follow up -- [inaudible] i come from an alcoholic family also, and i made the decision never to drink because i watched -- i didn't even need science, i just saw. but then i realized through life that there is this -- i never took painkillers after surgery. i realized that --

[laughter] you know, it's not that simple. and what do you think of the disability status of drug addiction and maybe alcohol? do you think that there's a path, is it a disabling sickness, in your mind? is it something the government should intervene in? >> well, the government has intervened, you know, very actively. it was very late. the government wasn't funding alcoholism treatment until the late 1960s. but that, you know, but it did recognize it at that point. and i think that is one of the major markers of the progress that we've made, is that society has accepted its responsibility to help people who are sick. and it's recognized that in the past with regard to all kinds of diseases, but now it also recognizes it for what, you know, used to be considered a moral failing. and that's, that's tremendously important.

>> historically, were there groups like alanon -- [inaudible] >> yeah, alanon was an outgrowth of, was start by women whose husbands were in alcoholics anonymous. i think it was in the 1950s. so it was considerably later, but it also has become a national movement, and there are millions of people, you know, in alanon. >> [inaudible] a lot of controversy right now about the 12-step program. many activists i know, which i don't agree with, but they complain that the idea of surrendering to a higher power surrenders your political agency and that these kinds of notions are not for everybody. i mean, that seems to be -- how do you feel about that?

>> well, the other, you know, another very encouraging development is that i think there's widespread recognition by people both in aa and outside aa that there are all different paths to recovery. and, you know, where in the beginning of the history of aa it seemed to be the only way, i think it's -- lots of other groups started and support sobriety, and that's, that's good because people are very different, and they need different kinds of things. but i think what they all have in common is an understanding that it's important for people who have a chronic illness, because alcoholism isn't going to be resolved like other illnesses, you know, like that aren't chronic. that they need support. and they need to be able to talk to people who think like they do

and have the same problem that they do. so it's, recovery is much broader today than it was even, you know, 50 years ago, 40 years ago. >> was widespread drinking common in the colonial -- >> oh, my goodness, yes. >> were people considered to be alcoholics? >> no. i, you know, this is part of the change. in the beginning there was a belief that alcohol was a good thing, you know, and that there was no downside to alcohol. and the colonists drank all through the day. that's, you know, that's partly why there was so much drinking, you know, at the turn of the 19th century. they drank in the mornings, they drank when they worked, they drank at noon, they drank -- and a lot of those people, you know, most of those people didn't become alcoholics, they just -- they became habituated to it.

but it also had to do with, you know, liquor became a lot stronger toward the end of the 18th century and became a lot cheaper. and, you know, and distilled spirits began to really make their appearance on the scene, and that took a lot of people into alcoholism much more quickly than before. it was a problem. the temperance movement was a response to a problem of rising alcohol itch. alcoholism. >> [inaudible] was it common in europe -- [inaudible] >> well, they had a lot of -- yeah, there was a lot of drinking in europe too. thaw, they thought it helped with a cold, you know? they weren't the warmest people in the world, and they thought it eased the pain of heavy physical labor. whether it did or not, it made them feel better. you know, it seemed to answer a lot of, a lot of needs for a

society that was, you know, still pretty primitive. and, but, you know, there was, there was alcoholism there in, there too. it was just considered, you know, aberrant, not a threat to social order that it became. >> [inaudible] >> well, that's true. >> i wonder if you could comment on, you know, the fact that prohibition was pretty much a dismal failure, you know? and yet we still have in this day and age the war on drugs. and the last time i checked, alcohol is a drug, you know? stiffer penalties, you know, attempts by the government to regulate or control by punishment and longer prison terms, things of that nature.

what, you know, what your opinion would be in that respect. >> well, prohibition, prohibition was a disaster for alcoholics. it was -- actually, you know, many alcoholics looked forward to prohibition. they kind of believed what everybody was saying, that once alcohol was gone, they couldn't drink, and they would be cured. but the lesson of prohibition was that you can't deal with drug abuse, it's really interdiction. you have to deal, you have to be able to offer people an alternative, and you have to be able to support their recovery. and i think that's, that's still true today, you know? people who are ill, you know, have to have help in getting well. and they don't get it in prison. and we've made a terrible mistake and sent many, many addicts to prison who shouldn't

have been there. we go through, it seems like we go through cycles where for a peer, you know, we try -- for a period, you know, we try, you know, we try to help people, and then we get scared, you know? we're scared of the drugs, we're scared of the consequences of the drugs and the crime that come with the drugs, and then we crack down. and then we realize we've made a mistake, and then there's a period -- i just hope we don't go through that cycle begun. i think we, at this time in the history i think there's widespread recognition that we made a terrible mistake during the war on drugs and treating, in treating addicts the way we did. >> any other questions? okay, let's give him a round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> i just want to thank you all so much for coming out and joining us this afternoon and supporting your local bookstore. it means a lot, so thank you for keeping vroman's in business. also supporting authors that we have, so let's give chris a round of applause. [applause] now's the signing portion of the event, so come on up. we to ask that you purchase your book before you get them signed, and you can sign them downstairs or here. thank you so much, enjoy the rest of your saturday. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [laughter]

>> i heard about that. okay. i think you have to go downstairs. i'm not going anywhere. [laughter] >> i'm going to purchase this. >> i'll be waiting for you. >> thank you very much. >> sure, thank you. >> hi. >> i'm tom w -- >> nice to meet you. do you want me to write it, dedicate it to you? >> yeah. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> and on sunday we're live from the museum of the bible in washington, d.c. from 1-2:30 p.m. eastern. we'll talk to the museum's director of content, and is we'll take your phone calls on the impact of the bible on literature, government, legal systems, education, human rights and more. on our "after words" program this week, economics professor brian kaplan argues that the main function of higher education has become less about

insuring students are prepared with skills for the job market. he's interviewed by scott carlson. ..